Mario Kart Wii Hands-on

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We take to the streets. Our impressions, plus direct-feed video and screens.

By Bozon

It was a nice surprise today to come into the IGN office, content with our review of Smash Bros., only to find that Nintendo's upcoming arcade racer Mario Kart Wii (you may have heard of it) was waiting for us. We've had a chance to go hands-on with the game previously, as our own Craig "Yoshi is the Best Racer" Harris sat down for about an hour with the game just days before GDC, and our second outing with the game is none too different, although we now have far more time to spend with the title.

As a quick note, we're only able to cover the initial content available in Mario Kart Wii, which is based on the starting cast of 12 racers and 16 tracks, and while we're already unlocking the deepest, darkest secrets Mario Kart Wii has to offer, Reggie will destroy us should we say anything more.

Giant Mario will crush all.

The big question on everyone's mind is, of course, geared towards the performance of tilt steering with the Wii remote. Simply put, is it fun to play? The short answer for me personally, is yes, it works just fine. Already people are getting their hands on the tilt control though, and each person has a different overall feeling on it. Some gamers here in IGN LA aren't too keen on the tilt, and like Craig Harris mentioned previously it has a bit of a learning curve. Some even switched from tilt to classic control within seconds, demanding traditional control. With that being said, it's still fun to use in my opinion, and while I'm sure more hardcore competitions will come to down to GameCube controller vs. GameCube controller (myself included in that camp), it took only a few laps around the track for me to get used to the new play style as a whole. In fact, fans of Kart that have tracked down the Namco-designed arcade version of Mario Kart will find the feeling to be very similar here on Wii, minus the intense force feedback of the arcade wheel mount.

The core design of Mario Kart Wii is pretty straightforward. Once the game boots for the first time, a prompt alerts you to select a Mii for your Mario Kart license. The save file actually displays your Mii head and small grid of all cups and classes in the game, complete with the medals scored in each respective spot on the table. From there, the main interface is very simple, complete with huge IR-supported buttons. A quick flick of the Wii-mote will then get you into single player mode, multiplayer, single or two player Wi-Fi Connection online play, or the Mario Kart Channel. If you want the channel to appear on your Wii menu, make the change in the main options menu and it'll be added to your home screen. Any more details on online and the Mario Kart Channel will have to wait, however.

As it stands right now, Mario Kart offers a pretty robust list of characters and levels, although half of the tracks available at this time are repeats from older games, which leaves us only with eight newcomers. Characters include Baby Mario, Baby Peach, Toad, Koopa, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Peach, Wario, Waluigi, Donkey Kong, and Bowser. Each character starts with three cars, and three bikes, and as mentioned previously it's kart-only for 50CC races, bike-only for 100CC, and mixed in 150CC. The Mushroom cup is made up entirely of new tracks, including Luigi Circuit, Moo Moo Meadows (a new take on Moo Moo farm), Mushroom Gorge, and Toad's Factory. The Flower Cup is also entirely new tracks as well, with Mario Circuit, Coconut Mall, DK Summit, and Wario's Gold Mine rounding off the package.

The other two cups, however, are made up of tracks from previous games. Nintendo mentioned that half the tracks in the game will be new, while the other half are essentially a "best of" with remade retro levels. Shell Cup includes GCN Peach Beach, DS Yoshi Falls, SNES Ghost Valley 2, and N64 Mario Raceway, with Banana Cup adding in N64 Sherbet Land, GBA Shy Guy Beach, DS Delfino Square, and GCN Waluigi Stadium. There are little changes to the retro tracks as well, including a few added boost and jump areas in Delfino Square, and a bit more open space on Shy Guy Beach.